We look back at a journey of 20 years as self-made entrepreneurs and 10 years as venture capital investors in technology. Our personal motivation changed fundamentally along the way, driven by the experiences that we made and the insights that we gained. We came to realise in 2015, that we desired to give back to society & environment. We wanted to stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution. It led us to change our ethics, our lifestyles, the way we run our businesses, the strategies by which we invest and the political decisions that we support. It also led us to co-found the for-impact organization Leaders for Climate Action, to become pledgers, ambassadors and climate-champions at Founders Pledge and to financially support the climate action publication The Beam. We moved on to built the climate-tech investment practice at Earlybird and Ferry even changed roles from Co-Founder & CEO of Forto to Chairman in order to dedicate substantially all of his time to climate tech and impact investing. He recently gave a TEDx Talk on the climate crisis and wrote a book on Climate Action for Entrepreneurs.
The creation of Pirate Impact in 2021 is the crystallisation of our ambition to make an even broader and deeper impact. We aim to address fundamental systemic change in the face of an existential environmental and social threat to humanity. Our goal is to take the concept of capitalism to the next level by transforming today’s financial capitalism into tomorrow’s impact capitalism. This is the solution to align what has been dis-aligned since the advent of the industrial age in the 18th century: The interests of people, planet and profits. This is what needs to be done urgently. And it needs the support of a broad range of stakeholders: Citizens, Entrepreneurs, Managers, Investors and Governments. Pirate Impact is our joint effort to inspire and empower these stakeholders to reflect on systemic change and to jointly advance Impact Capitalism.
What is Pirate Impact?
Pirate Impact encompasses two elements with the idea of mutual reinforcement:
Pirate Impact Blog: We cover a range of topics in the context of impact capitalism, technology-for-good and impact-entrepreneurship in order to share our views and know-how and to inspire others to follow. We believe in the power of collaboration and community. Please reach out if you would like to contribute as a guest author: contact@pirate.io
Pirate Impact Capital: Our family-office that we built since 2011 under the brand “Sky & Sand Capital” and that we have recently re-branded to Pirate Impact Capital. Since a decade we invest in venture capital but also across asset-classes like public equities, real-estate and private equity. In 2018 we first started to blend considerations around ESG and impact into our investment strategy. Since 2020, actively investing for environmental & social impact is paramount for us. We have a special focus on stage-agnostic direct investments in climate-tech & social impact companies in EU and US.